"Yeah. Probably sat outside for a day or two."

"Or a month." Esther tentatively opened the bag again and peeled back a layer of jeans. She hated the sticky sound they made as she pulled them apart.

"We need to go through her things. Look for any ID or prescriptions that can help us."

"Help us do what?"

"Verify parts of her story. Establish who she is so that we can help her get whatever ID, papers, a.s.sistance we can. Any meds so that doctors know what she's on."

"So we need to..."

"... go through all her pockets."

Esther stretched the pair of damp jean out along the floor and reached into a pocket. Something jabbed her finger and she dropped the jeans as if she'd been bit. Visions of junkie needles and a future living with Hep C or AIDS flashed through her head. Gingerly, she opened the pant pocket. It was a hair clip. "Oh."

"You okay over there?"

"Yeah. just surprised by all the random things I'm finding."

"Me too." Wayne opened a pink purse. Inside was nothing but damp panties. He tossed them onto the pile of them he'd found in purses, pockets, and packages. "I have never seen a larger collection of panties in my life."

"A girl's got to have drawers. Found some over here, too." Esther rifled through another purse. "She's fond of leopard prints."

"Found a prescription." Wayne turned a coat pocket inside out. "Abilify."

"Found another one." Esther smiled at keeping pace with Wayne's finds. Having two older broth ers, the blood rush of compet.i.tion reared its head. "And..."

Wayne paused with his hands full of bras and a bewildered look on his face. The sight caused Esther to burst out laughing. "What?"

"Here." She handed him a social security card.

"Bam!" Wayne exclaimed. "That the biggie. This should make getting her some a.s.sistance much easier."

"It's almost time for drop. Should I throw those in the wash?"

"Yeah. Only cause she's in the hospital and we don't know when Tristan will be back."

"Or if."

"Right. But, as much as you may want to, don't get into the habit of doing that kind of stuff. I know it may seem like you're helping, but you wouldn't be. We're not their personal a.s.sistants. We don't do for them what they can do for themselves."

"Got it. I'll take care of this. Someone's already here."

Esther toted the two trash bags, waving off Wayne's initial move to a.s.sist her. Wayne peeked out the window. Rhianna carried her newborn, swaddled in two layers of blankets. Normally, he'd let her wait outside until it was time for drop, as it was important that the kids learned and respected boundaries. But he wasn't going to leave her outside with the little one.

"Good evening, Rhianna." Wayne bowed before her and waved her in.

"You so silly." Her hair flared, interlocked lockets in need of re-twisting. She carried herself with a fierce s.e.xiness. Upon closer inspection, her worn, bruised skin added a hint of purple to her sepia complexion. Her half-jacket, with nothing underneath, exposed her pierced belly b.u.t.ton and tattoo on the small of her back. Over blue jeans. She had the sour tang of unwashed a.s.s.

"How's the little man?" Wayne teased the blankets away from his face to get a better look.

"Good."

"What's his name?"

"Haven't made up my mind yet."

"So what do you call him?"

"Baby."

"Girl, you a trip. Let me hold him." Baby struggled as if he wanted to crawl back into her womb and wait for a better world. Wayne hoisted "Baby" with ease and noted the brief grimace of worry on Rhianna's face, and it rea.s.sured him in an odd way. Her attachment to the newborn.

The child was all Rhianna would know of love. She'd spent too much of her teen years going to parties or hooking up. Too worried about food to dream of a future. She had no room for baby thoughts or baby dreams. And a still, quiet voice within her hoped his thoughts and dreams would rub off on her. From the moment she found out she was pregnant, she knew she didn't have a choice but to be with him. She'd have this baby. Have someone to love. Things would be different this time.

Rhianna's mother once crossed a set. She had the rep for sleeping around, not caring which block they came from or what set they claimed. And she had a knack for choosing the precise wrong ones. Word on the street for those who listened, had it that she once dumped Geno for Speedb.u.mp, two up-and-coming young princes of the streets. The two men exchanged words. The argument was heard by Speedb.u.mp's brother, who came down to get his brother out. Bama, who was country crazy and only needed an excuse, saw the brewing fight and got his weapon. When Bama came out, all he saw was Geno and Speedb.u.mp's brother after Speedb.u.mp. He didn't realize or care that Speedb.u.mp had broken away from his pursuing brother who only wanted to keep his brother safe. Geno caught three bullets to the back. He survived, but he was never the same. Dropped out of the game.

The streets buzzed with the news, the blame quickly traced back to Rhianna's mom, who was set to get a retaliatory beat down. Possibly take a bullet herself when the female members of the crew caught up with her. They caught up with her at her aunt's crib. She called the police even before she heard them bang at the door. Rhianna couldn't have been older than four. Her mother beat her, slamming her face into the bathroom sink, and when Five-O showed up, she blamed the girls. The confusion bought her mother time. That evening, she was gone.

"You alone?" Wayne asked.

"With my boyfriend."

"Where'd he go? Or does 'boyfriend' imply much more of a commitment to the relationship than he's ready for?"

"He didn't even leave a tip."

"Chivalry is dead."

"Said he was coming through though."

"You see Lady G lately?"

"Nah, I ain't trying to hang with her no more."

"Thought she was your girl."

"She was. Till she did King like she did."

"Everyone makes mistakes."

"You hang with Lott?" Rhianna asked.

"No, but he's been on the creep tip. No one knows where he's at."

"Cause he know, too. You don't just do your boy like that."

"We supposed to be family. Family can work through problems together, no matter how hard, because at the end of the day, we still blood."

"I ain't trying to hear that."

"If we can't find a way to forgive and..."

"Ain't. Trying."

Someone pounded on the front door then either impatient with the lack of immediate response or just noticing the doorbell rang the doorbell five times in a row. Wayne pa.s.sed Baby back to Rhianna, his mood spoiling with each additional ring.

"Hey, my dude." The young, white, red-headed boy had a heroin thinness to him and the disposition of someone who would sell out his dying mother for his next fix or to avoid prison. A patch covered one of his eyes, the surrounding area of his face webbed with healed-over scars.

"What's up?" Wayne said. "You here for drop?"

"My breezy said I could swing through. And I'm all about the free swing, you feel me?" He raised his fist for a b.u.mp. Wayne let it hang there.

"I'm Wayne."

"My people call me Fathead."

"Where you stay at?"

"Used to stay with this one dude. Partner had a cat. One day the cat turns up missing and he blamed me. Said I let it out and s.h.i.t. So he kicked me out."

"Did you?"

"I ain't trying to keep track of no p.u.s.s.y that walks on four legs. s.h.i.t. Dude still owes me so I took his bike and pants."

"You took his pants?"

"Wasn't like they were his no way."

This was the kind of introduction that made his job both frustrating and exhilarating. Wayne had met many "Fathead"s over the years. Nothing was ever their fault and trouble just seemed to always completely randomly follow them about. Still, they had their quirky charm about them so genuine in their utter bulls.h.i.t that he couldn't help but be drawn to them. Every Fathead was an opportunity to show G.o.d's love and mercy. Wayne stepped out of the doorway to let Fathead in. Rhianna rushed up to him as if they were long-lost friends reunited at long last, and hugged him for several moments.

"We'll be having dinner in a few minutes." Wayne put his hand on Fathead's shoulder, nudging them apart.

"Hey man, do you have any points?"

"We don't do needle exchanges here."

"Oh my bad."

Esther walked into the dining room carrying a large bowl of salad as one of the other volunteers for the night toiled away in the kitchen. She hesitated when she saw Fathead, then not wanting to stare at his eye patch, arranged the array of salad dressing.

"No worries, baby. I ain't self-conscious of this s.h.i.t. My pops put a cigarette out in my eye when I was a baby. Had a gla.s.s one, but I lost that s.h.i.t. Got a marble I use sometimes. You want to see it?"

"No, that's all right."

"Not 'Baby'." Wayne glanced over at Rhianna and smiled at the irony. "Her name's Ms Esther."

Percy wandered out of the kitchen. Tipping nearly three bills, he had a darker knot above his left eyebrow in the shape of a crescent moon. His downcast eyes rarely met people in the eye. Carrying a tray of cinnamon graham crackers and milk, he liked to pretend that he'd made them from his secret recipe. They were the last addition to the food set out for that evening's drop night. Wayne stood at the dining room table and gestured for them to join him. He took Esther's hand as they all clasped hands.

"Percy, you want to bless the food?"

"G.o.d is great, G.o.d is good. Let us thank Him for our food," Percy said. "By His hands we all are fed. Thank You, Lord, for our daily bread."

"Amen." Wayne clapped Percy on the back. He'd come a long way from the shy boy too spooked by his own shadow to speak. And there were still untapped pools of potential they hadn't begun to reach. Percy radiated a peace about him, a simplicity many confused with him being simple.

"Has anyone seen Prez?" Percy asked.

"Prez ain't right." Rhianna sprawled down low in a wooden dinette chair which only matched three others pulled around the table.

"What you mean?" Wayne pa.s.sed a bowl of mashed potatoes.

"He stays up in his crib. Avoids us."

"You know why?"

"Cause of... how things went down. You know how tight he was with King."

"Yeah. I keep meaning to check in on him," Wayne said.

"Someone ought to. He up in his room all day."

"He back with Big Momma?"

"Naw, he on his own." Rhianna piled salad on her plate. "He's just sort of... lost... without King."

King's personal mission, Prez, had come far, too. He'd fallen into drugs, but King walked with him through his addiction to the other side. Addicts could always find one another, like they had a radar for that weakness.

Despite the familiar sickness in his stomach, Fathead still chased after his high. Though he remembered the first time he got high with crystal clarity a memory driven home by the fact that he had s.e.x for the first time while high the rest of that summer he could barely recall. Not feeling whole, he doubted himself. But when he smoked marijuana, it was like aspirin for the soul and fixed the ache for a while. The shameful things he had to do to earn only gave him more of a reason to get that high. Shooting up was the next obvious progression. The first time he shot up, he shot his load straight into his muscle. It burned so badly, he didn't think he'd walk again. Luckily, he had internet access and taught himself how to properly shoot up. Setting up his rig, he located a vein on his wrist and got off. The high was perfection. Effortless. For the first time, he knew wholeness. All his hopes, dreams, and worries faded; fear no longer consumed him. Life suddenly worked. A few hours later, it was over and he was scared again. After that, it was a short trip to the land of an addict's broken promises and second/third/fourth chances: snorting crystals up his nose, drunk on Stoli, stoned on Ambien stolen from rehab, breaking into his parents' house, and writing checks to himself.

Fathead plopped down on the couch in what pa.s.sed for a living room in the Outreach Inc house. He shifted without purpose, not quite knowing what to do with himself. His family didn't exactly sit around discussing the day's events with one another, so he withdrew from the dining room table, unsure what to do with himself. His hands found a pencil next to a notepad on the coffee table beside him. Without asking whose pad it was, he began to doodle his name on the pad. An ornate "F" as if he sketched what a tag of his name might look like.

"Man, look at you. You about as uncomfortable as a fat man adjusting his thong." Wayne walked over to him. "Want me to hook up the games?"

"I don't even recognize that gaming system. This s.h.i.t should be in a museum." Fathead covered his mouth in a "my bad" gesture for cussing.

"It's free. It's here. And your alternative is sitting on the couch staring at nothing."

Their Nintendo 64 couldn't exactly compete with the latest game system, but it had been donated to the house, in that way rich folks gave away their "old" things when they got the latest model. Part of him chided himself for being so constantly cynical. It wasn't as if he wasn't called to love the wealthy also, but somehow it was so much harder for him. He hated the waste, the excess, the sense of ent.i.tlement. Life was simple and was to be lived simply. Plus, he grew up with this game system, so he could beat any of the kids on the games.

Fathead picked out a hunting game that came with guns that plugged directly into the television. Spreading his legs shoulder-length apart, he relaxed his knees to squat low. He pulled his bandana up over his mouth and turned his gun sideways. He twisted his right and then left, popping the joints in his neck, then nodded to Wayne.

Wayne did a sly double-take, staring at the boy like he was a d.a.m.n fool. "Does the mask help?"

"I'm more into it." Fathead raised the mask. "You know they call me 'Wolf', right."

"Thought they called you 'Fathead'."

"That too. See, I used to raise timber wolves on my uncle's property. One day, when we were out hunting on his property man must have a thousand acres we found a litter. The mother had been shot dead. So we decided to raise the litter. Sold all of them but one off. My uncle decided to keep that one for himself. Probably how I got such a good sense of smell."